Adler's Older, But Not Wiser

I'd like to say Adler's getting better.... and at some things she is doing better, but at class at Call of the Wild on Saturday she was clearly one of the worst behaved dogs. Tom took the day off from training to golf so that just left me and Adler. I was looking forward to having Adler all to myself at training and thinking that she was going to have a great class with just me, but it was just the opposite.

We worked primarily on sit and stay. Adler couldn't handle herself. She would sit for five seconds. Then get up, sit back down and get up again. Plus, add distractions to the mix like the teacher walking around and bouncing a tennis ball and forget it, I looked like a lion handler unable to control an unwieldy lion. She definitely needs work on this.

After class, Adler and I visited my dad and my 21-year-old cat, Casey. Casey presented the perfect distraction for practicing sit and stay with Adler. Aside from almost giving the old cat a heart attack, Adler did great. She obeyed me and refrained from running after the cat as it darted out of the room. It was only after I released her from the sit position that she bolted to find Casey who had had enough time to jump up on the bed, out of reach of Adler.

Today in the park, we also worked on the sit and stay with one of us serving as the distraction. She did pretty well. Just like with anything though, it's all about the reinforcement. To end on a positive note, Adler was the best in class this week at the down command. She sure showed up those young pups. Now if we can just get her to stay down!